I understand that there were several economic and political reasons for the war but ending slavery was one of the reasons also. What about Lincoln?
"Abraham Lincoln
Emancipator or Racist ?
1996
This was written and published in a book I co-authored with my son entitled "Flag Tag Gate" which dealt with the State of Maryland's illegal revocation of the organizational logo license plates of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
One of the greatest misconceptions we have discovered when hearing people talk about the "Civil War" is their statements about Mr. Lincoln. Most persons seem to believe that Lincoln was the pioneer of the "Civil Rights" and "Human Rights" movements of today. We, too, were taught that in school. It wasn't until we really began studying the War Between The States and reading detailed biographies that we discovered the true Mr. Lincoln. Please excuse us for not referring to him as President Lincoln. Our hearts were with the South; therefore, Jefferson Davis was our President. "Honest Abe" was just Mr. Lincoln.
It must be remembered that Lincoln sought to preserve the Union through unconstitutional measures. The blacks and liberals have placed Mr. Lincoln high on a pedestal, considering him to be one of "our" greatest Presidents and greatest Americans. He is also referred to as "The Great Emancipator." However, history, not fable, shows him to be far less. Lincoln was terribly ruthless in suppressing anti-war or Confederate sentiment in the North and in the border states. "Honest Abe" was anything but honest. Like our lawyer politician opponents of today he must have either skipped many law classes or have been asleep. For it was in our own state of Maryland that Lincoln considered arresting the entire membership of the legislature. He did order the arrest of many leading citizens of Maryland after suspending the writ of habeas corpus, a basic human right dating back to the Magna Carta.
Let's take a look at some of Mr. Lincoln's views and quotations: "I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office." (September 15, 1858, - campaign speech) "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery." (March 4, 1861, - First Inaugural Address) "I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District of Columbia." ( March 24, 1862, - letter to Horace Greeley) "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it." (August 22, 1862, - letter to Horace Greeley, New York Tribune editor)
From the Lincoln Douglas Debates of 1858, "I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not nor ever been in favor of making voters of the free Negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other white man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man."
As far as Lincoln's views of racial equality is must be remembered that in the famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln advocated deporting blacks to Africa. As for the great Northern supporters it must be remembered that many of the Northern states had laws that forbade the immigration of free blacks. In fact, it can be argued that many Northerners were not as much opposed to slavery, then to the actual slaves themselves. Several exclusion laws were passed in the North forbidding free blacks from coming into various states. New Jersey, Oregon, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Illinois (do you know where this is, Mr. Lincoln?) all passed various laws to this effect.
Alabama State Sen. Charles Davidson remarked in a speech of May 31, 1996, before the Alabama State Legislature: "Abraham Lincoln, himself, stated the opinion of the Northern people at a meeting with a group of black leaders during the war, when Lincoln said to them 'there is an unwillingness on the part of our people (Northern whites) to live with you free colored people. Whether this is right or wrong, I am not prepared to discuss, but a fact with which we must deal. Therefore, I think it best for us to separate'. Whereupon, Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress purchased land, passed laws and started shipping free Northern blacks out of the United States down to poverty stricken Haiti. Lincoln put together several such schemes to remove free blacks from the United States, to send some back to Africa and some to Central and South America. At the end of the war, a few weeks before Lincoln was killed, Union Gen. Benjamin Butler asked Lincoln what was he going to do with all the recently freed Southern blacks? Lincoln replied, "I think we should deport them all." Meanwhile, down South, Confederate States President, Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina are adopting an eight year old, free black orphaned boy, named Jim Limber. Also, in St. Louis, when General John Fremont freed slaves of 'disloyal' Missouri Confederates, an angry Lincoln fired him.
Not wanting to be accused of taking some of Mr. Lincoln's quotes out of context we are enclosing his entire First and Second Inaugural Addresses and have done the same with his Emancipation Proclamation in the next section. We have highlighted some areas that deserve special attention.
Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861
Fellow citizens of the United States: in compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of his office."
I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety, or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.
I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
"Resolved: that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution - to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up", their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to HOW it shall be kept?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileged and immunities of citizens in the several States?"
I take the official oath today with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unConstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief Constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION."
But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and Ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it WILL Constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak? Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from--will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all Constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution--certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other.
If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases AFTER the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, an no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or their Revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution - which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the states. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people.
By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865
Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it - all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war - seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
Radio talk shows were constantly buzzing with comments about the Emancipation Proclamation. It is amazing how many persons had no idea that it was basically a worthless piece of paper with no binding authority. Callers, black and white, were not knowledgeable as to the underlying motives of the Proclamation. Rather than cite small parts of it for dissection, we have included it in its entirety, with our comments at the end.
The Emancipation Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America:
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thence forward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, (including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
A review of the Emancipation Proclamation shows that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln freed all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union side. It did not affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. It certainly did not free the slaves in the Confederate States of America because this was in a foreign nation that Lincoln had no authority over. As James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy stated in their The South Was Right! , "A reading of the proclamation will demonstrate that Lincoln declared free those slaves he had no power to free, and he left in bondage those that he could have set free! (italics added) So much for the myth of Lincoln as the great emancipator." This would be like President Clinton giving a pardon to all persons jailed in Mexico.
The purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was threefold. The first purpose was to try and stir a slave uprising in the Confederate States of America. The second purpose was to shift the cause of the War Between The States from a war about "States Rights" to a war about slavery in the eyes of Americans and the rest of the World. The third purpose was to keep other countries, namely Great Britain and France, from entering the war on the side of the Confederacy. Once the World had the opinion that the war was about slavery, no country would come to the aid of the Confederate States of America. Lincoln succeeded in this task.
It may be argued that Lincoln's viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As his remarks have shown, he was basically a White Supremist who had no interest in equality of the races or of freeing the slaves. However as a movement for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, he became more sympathetic to the idea. The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the United States. It wasn't until December 18, 1865, with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, that slavery ended.
It could be argued that Sen. Larry Young of today, has taken a page out of Lincoln's book, in trying to switch the focus of the issues at hand. The legal situation with the organizational logo tags and the Sons of Confederate Veterans vs. The State of Maryland, was clearly a First Amendment issue. Slavery, and the Confederate Battle Flag had absolutely nothing to do with legal arguments in the case. However, if Sen. Larry Young could bring the slavery issue into the current day battle, he would be an instant winner. Unlike the 1860's, no one accepts the institution of slavery in the 1990's. Therefore, by making slavery an issue in the logo tags battle, and screaming righteous indignation, Sen. Larry Young is everybody's best buddy - because no one today believes in slavery! Well, it worked to a point. It got the minorities, hot heads, and liberals on his side and against the Sons of Confederate Veterans by turning the focus away from the real issue - just like Lincoln did in the 1860's. However, Judge Smalkin decided the case on the laws of the land, not emotions, and decided in favor of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Nice try, Larry.
Obviously the War Between The States and Mr. Lincoln are closely tied with the slavery issue and the Emancipation Proclamation. Let's stop for a moment and consider the following: If the Union (Northerners) were so concerned about freeing the slaves in the South, how do you balance that theory against the fact that the Union was doing its best to completely destroy the entire American Indian race in the West. Their genocidal treatment of the Native Americans would have drawn a smile on Adolf Hitler's face. Doesn't seem like "equal rights" and "equality" were in their vocabulary? Or how about the fact that the U.S. Congress offered to pass a constitutional amendment for the South, guaranteeing permanent slavery forever in the slave States, if the Southern states that seceded would return to the Union? The South refused the offer.
If slavery was the primary reason for the war, as since promoted by the North, it is no question but that the South would have quickly returned. The fact that they refused the offer shows there was much more involved. How could the war be fought over slavery when both sides owned slaves? Even in his Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861, Lincoln said he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." He only made it an issue when the Confederacy started winning. Gen. U.S. Grant had a personal slave and Lincoln's wife's family owned many. Gen. Grant remarked that if he "thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side."
R. Miles of Bel Air, Maryland, in an editorial stated, "Emancipation? President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. Issued at a time when the Confederacy seemed to be winning the war, Lincoln hoped to transform a disagreement over secession into a crusade against slavery, thus preventing Great Britain from intervening on the side of the South. The proclamation allowed slavery to continue in the North as well as in Tennessee and large parts of Louisiana and Virginia. It applied to Confederate held slaves, which Lincoln had no authority over, but not to slaves under Federal control."
As stated earlier, many persons feel the primary purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to try and start a slave uprising in the South, with the secondary motive of shifting the "reason" of the war from a States Rights issue to a "Slavery" issue, thereby keeping other countries (namely Great Britain and France) from coming to the aid of the Confederates. The Emancipation Proclamation revealed Lincoln's deceit for blacks as it freed those slaves held "within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States."
The bottom line, the absolute bottom line regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, was that Mr. Lincoln kept those slaves in bondage that he could have freed.
It should be remembered that slaves in Washington, D.C. were not freed until April 1862. Slavery continued throughout the entire war in five Union held states: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. While the Confederate Constitution did not outlaw slavery it had a provision which prohibited the African slave trade outright (unlike the U.S. Constitution). Also remember that when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, there were eight union slave states and only seven Confederate slave states.
Let's look a little more closely at the word "slave." Technically, the word "slave" is being inappropriately used, as pointed out by Alabama State Sen. Charles Davidson, who stated that "the word 'Slave' is Greek for the word 'Slav' and rightly applies only to white European slaves or slavs from the countries of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Slavonia, Russia, Poland, Hungary and others. The Slavonic tribes are the root of all European white people. For a thousand years, so many millions of these white European Slavs were captured and sold as servants, that the word 'Slavs' or 'Slaves' became universally used for the word 'servant' and was only later applied to black servants. Every white person in American has ancestors who were slaves including the Scots, British, French, and Germans. It the early colonies of America whites were regularly sold as permanent slaves. If it were justifiable, whites would be much more justified in having 'a chip on their shoulder' or a 'pity party' because more of their white ancestors were slaves and for a longer period of time. Almost all blacks in the U.S. were under slavery for less than 100 years and only 5% of all black slaves shipped by black masters out of Africa ever came to the United States, because most black slaves were shipped to South America or the West Indies."
Chris Millrons, of Finksburg, Maryland, in an editorial in the Carroll County Times of January 19, 1997, states the "Majority of American slave traders were from the North. The first slave ship outfitter here was built in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1637. Massachusetts also legalized the enslavement and export for slave of American Indians. Virginia made this illegal. In 1778, Virginia, became the first state to prohibit the importation of slaves. Ninety four percent of all African slaves brought to the western hemisphere were sold to slave holders in the Caribbean and South America, mainly by Northern traders."
Here are a few other interesting facts regarding slavery and the War Between The States. General Robert E. Lee encouraged the Confederate States of America to free slaves and allow them to join the army. His suggestion came to fruition and the Confederate States of America did recruit and arm black regiments. General Robert E. Lee freed his family slaves before the war; however, in contrast, Union General U. S. Grant kept his wife's slaves well into the war. When questioned as to why he didn't free the slaves, Grant replied, "Good help is so hard to come by these days."
Many free blacks owned slaves themselves. In 1861 Charleston, for example, a free colored planter named William Ellison owned 70 slaves. Even in 1830 New York City, three decades before the war, eight black planters owned 17 slaves.
Alabama State Sen. Charles Davidson made some very interesting comments regarding slavery and the War Between The States in his speech before the Alabama State Senate, stating, "There were masters who violated the law and mistreated their servants, like Union General William T. Sherman, who owned a number of slaves before the war and who was constantly in court facing charges for abusing his slaves. The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater today, in the housing projects than they ever were on the slave plantations in the old South."
"Even Blacks and Indians owned slaves in the old South, while 7% of Southern whites owned slaves, 2% of free blacks in the South owned slaves. In 1860, the U.S. Census reported that around 10,000 free blacks owned some 60,000 black slaves. It was a black slave master named Anthony Johnson, who sued and won his case in a Virginia Court in 1653 that changed temporary servitude to lifetime servitude."
Here is some interesting information regarding Maryland and slavery. Contrary to popular modern-day beliefs, not all blacks were slaves at the time of the War Between The States. In Maryland, roughly half of the black population, by 1860, were already free. As Jean H. Baker points out in The Politics of Continuity, Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to 1870, published by The Johns Hopkins University in 1973, was that by 1860, there were 171,131 blacks in Maryland, 87,189 were slaves and 83,942 were free. The majority of the free blacks lived in the central and western portions of the state. She also pointed out that a political problem centered around the increase of the "hated free Negro population." Jean Baker stated that the best known organization dealing with the problem of freed slaves was the Colonization Society of Maryland. This society was founded in 1831, for the express purpose of encouraging the return of free Negroes to Africa. The Maryland state government participated in the funding and promotion of the project. A colony known as the state of Maryland in the nation of Liberia in West Africa was established for this purpose.
Copyright © Reverdy Lewin Orrell, III"
I hope this post will be somewhat helpful.
In my perspective, that is like saying that the Nazis were more honorable than the Allies. I know that may sound a little extreme but that is how I feel.
I would suggest that you take Thomas's advice and not believe the revisionist history. If you believe that the south can even remotley be compared to the nazis, then you have drunk the yankee cool-aid. Just have an open mind and do some research, it's not that hard.
God bless Dixieland!!!!!!!!
Bagpiper
